


Gorillaz in Derry, Maine

by Daddy_Clarinetist



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Gen, IT AU, don’t expect a fulfilling ending, murdoc is pennywise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 04:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13803714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daddy_Clarinetist/pseuds/Daddy_Clarinetist
Summary: Gorillaz now have to deal with Pennywise the Clown, otherwise known as Murdoc Niccals, from IT.





	Gorillaz in Derry, Maine

The year was 2011. The small town of Derry, Maine was filled with eager people who wanted to go outside and enjoy the heat of summer. While the town was a lot bigger than it had been many years ago, most of the citizens still considered it one of the more closed off places in Maine, even if the large mall, stores, and restaurants brought in a lot of people. The streets were busier, but the elders who had grown up there knew of a time when it wasn’t.

They also knew of a time when tragedy took place on those same streets.

Stuart Pot was the only kid sitting inside that day. There was nothing for him to gain from going outside when he was content with staying in his room alone. He was an only child who wished for nothing more than to have at least one person who cared for him. He just wanted to have one friend who would never leave his side, no matter what others said about him or his appearance. His parents told him that they loved him, yes, but it never seemed that way. They were always off on business trips, sometimes for weeks at a time, and expected him to be able to survive on his own with just the money they left him and the food already in the fridge. It was a sad life in his opinion. If only it could change.

There were a few things about Stuart that people judged him on. These things couldn’t be helped, though, so it was quite unfair. The first was his vibrant blue hair. His hair fell down to his neck in the back and about his chin in the front. Nobody believed him when he said that it was naturally blue. They thought that he dyed it that color and was seeking attention. They didn’t notice that he never had even the smallest bits of different colored roots. Second, they were creeped out by his eyes. He had Hyphema, a condition where the eye filled up with blood. Unfortunately for him, both of his eyes were like this, making it harder for the boy. A lot of the kids called him a freak. Those were the type of children that he did not want to be friends with. Finally, the third thing people judged him on was how happy he always was. The town of Derry knew that he had absent parents and no friends, so they assumed that he would be sadder than he was. They expected him to see the world as a terrible place. Instead, he tried to keep hope. He wanted to believe that he would get his happy ending, one that included friends and acceptance.

Sighing, Stuart looked out the window. While he was fine with staying indoors, there was a part of him that longed to be outside. He wanted to be able to go out and play with some friends like regular twelve year olds did.

Whatever. It wasn’t like that was going to happen in the few moments after he wished it. Stuart had better things to do than pout about his life all day. He moved from where he was sitting near the window and headed downstairs. In the living room, he turned on the television and flipped through the channels. Eventually, he settled with watching iCarly. For a while, he sat and watched the show, laughing whenever the characters did something silly. His favorite had to be Spencer because his sculptures were funny, especially when they failed.

Suddenly, there was a noise. Stuart jumped as he heard it, as he was not expecting it at all. Looking around him, he didn’t notice anything strange. That freaked him out a little bit because that meant that the noise came from somewhere else in the house. There was no doubt that it came from the house because of how clear it had been.

There it was again. Standing up, Stuart slowly approached the basement door. He felt like the noise was coming from down there, which terrified him even more. The basement was easily the scariest place in the house. Cautiously opening the door, he peered down the stairs.

Something was looking back up at him. A single eye could be seen from the bottom of the steps. It was large, bigger than anything human. Stuart was shaking now, unsure of what the creature could be. He reached his hand towards the wall at the top of the steps. His fingers hit something cold. The light switch. Flicking the lever up, light filled the basement.

Stuart screamed, backing away from the basement until he hit the wall behind him. He felt like he was going to puke. It was too horrible.

There was a whale stuffed in his basement.

It wasn’t possible. The thing was huge, so there was no way that it got itself into his basement. Yet, there it was, somehow present despite all of the impossibilities. It made some more whining noises, wanting Stuart to come back where he could see him. Stuart refused, not wanting to look at the monstrosity.

Then, it got worse. The whale started to...talk…

“Stuuuuuaaart,” the whiny voice of the whale called out. Stuart slid down until he was sitting on the ground, unable to keep standing. He brought his knees to his chest, trying to get himself to stop shaking. It didn’t work.

“N-No…” Stuart whispered with a broken voice.

“Did you know that I can float in water?” The whale asked. “If you come down here, I promise that you’ll float too!”

Why would he want to float? He just wanted out of there! If only he could feel his body. He hated the fact that he was too paralyzed in fear to move.

“You’ll float too! You’ll float too!”

Stuart managed to look up again, but he was shocked to find that the whale had somehow shrunk and was crawling its way up the stairs. Wait, crawling? How was the whale crawling up the stairs? Oh, no. It was starting to look less like a whale and more like a mutant creature. Hands were coming out of the stomach, and knees were starting to form towards the middle. Stuart found that he was able to move again, so he scrambled down the hall, away from the basement even more, as he watched the whale transform into...a clown.

It didn’t look like a normal clown. Instead of the normal white face paint and red smile, this clown was green. The lips were still painted red, but the facepaint went up in a straight line starting from the corners of his mouth and ended on his forehead. His teeth were sharp, obviously meant for a carnivore. The clown’s hair was an endless black, which was unsettling. His eyes were two different colors, the left being brown and the right being red. The outfit that he wore shouted clown, but the colors were all dark instead of bright and colorful. The frills on the top of the shirt were black, but there were also strange red colors mixed in as well. It was not a normal clown, but it was twice as scary.

“You’ll float too, Stuart! Don’t you want to come join me in the ocean? There are many whale friends to be made there!” The clown smirked as he made his way closer to Stuart. Quickly, the blue haired boy got up and ran all the way to his front door. To his horror, he could feel the clown right behind him the entire time. At one point, he felt the clown’s hand brush against his back, but it didn’t grab him. Finally, he made it to the front door. He opened it as fast as he could, slamming it behind him once he made it outside. He ran down the driveway before stopping to look around him.

There were a few neighbors out here and there, but none of them noticed Stuart’s exit. It was a lucky thing too. They would have thought him weird for running out of his house because of something that they wouldn’t believe was true. Stuart knew that what happened would have to stay with him. Other people would think he was crazy.

Shaking his head, Stuart started walking down the street, trying to seem normal and not scared. He had to get as far away from his house as possible.

...

There was no way that Stuart was going anywhere near his house until his parents got home. However, their arrival could be weeks away! Stuart had no place to sleep, no money on him to get food, and only the clothes he was wearing, which consisted of jeans and a t-shirt. He would have to find some place outside to sleep where he wouldn’t get in trouble.

For now, he settled with going to the library. It was quiet, but there were people around, so he would hopefully be safe from whatever that thing was.

On his way to the library, he bumped into a girl on accident. Neither of them had been paying attention when they both turned onto the same street from opposite sides.

“I’m so sorry!” Stuart apologized.

“It’s alright!” The girl exclaimed. She looked to be around ten years old. She had dark hair, dark eyes, and was really short. Compared to how tall Stuart was, especially for his age, she was half his size. “I wasn’t looking either. I’m Noodle, by the way. I’m new here.”

Stuart perked up when he found out that she was new. Maybe this was his chance to make a friend. “I’m Stuart. I’ve lived here my whole life.”

Noodle grinned. “That’s cool! I was trying to find my way to the library so that I could get a library card, but I don’t know where it is. Can you tell me?”

“I’m going there too, so you can follow me,” Stuart offered.

“Thanks! Your eyes are cool by the way. What happened to them?”

“Car accident.”

“That sucks, but they’re super wicked!”

“Thanks,” Stuart sighed in relief. He was glad that Noodle didn’t mind the way he looked. This had a high chance of ending with his first friend.

Noodle nodded, proud that she was able to show Stuart that she didn’t care about appearances. Everyone looked unique in their own ways, and it was never in a negative way.

Stuart was curious about something, so he asked it out loud. “Is Noodle your actual name? Or is it a nickname?”

“I picked it when I got adopted,” Noodle explained. “Something happened with my birth family, but I couldn’t remember any of it. There was no records of what my name was, so I just went with Noodle. Speaking of names, can I give you a nickname?”

“Sure, why not?”

Noodle thought for a moment before settling with one. “How about ‘2D?’”

“Why?” Stuart asked.

Noodle shrugged. “It sounds cool. Plus, it somehow works. You look like a 2D.”

Stuart, who we will now know as “2D,” was okay with this name. It proved that somebody liked him enough to give him a nickname.

“Okay them, 2D, off to the library!” Noodle yelled as she followed alongside 2D.

...

2D and Noodle quickly became friends in the next few days. They met up everyday at a park that 2D had secretly been sleeping at. The two of them talked and played for hours before Noodle had to go home.

It felt good to finally have a friend. 2D actually looked forward to talking to Noodle everyday, and that was not something he was willing to give up. He was glad to have somebody who understood him and didn’t make fun of him.

It was Sunday when Noodle came to the park in search of 2D with tears in her eyes. 2D instantly got worried. He didn’t want his friend to be upset. She was the only one who cared for him, so he had to show her that he cared about her too by comforting her.

“What happened?” 2D asked. “Are you okay?”

Noodle shook her head. She was unable to speak for a moment, but when she did, she said, “You wouldn’t believe me. It was...scary, but it wasn’t possible.”

2D didn’t think it could have been nearly as scary as the Whale Incident of 2011^™, but he knew that whatever it was spooked her. She was shaking as much as he had been that day.

“I’ll believe you,” 2D reassured her.

She wiped a tear off of her face before looking up at him with wide eyes. “I saw...I saw a clown.”

2D’s blood ran cold. “A clown?”

“Well, that sounds stupid, I know, but it wasn’t a normal clown! He was showing me my worst fear! I was so shocked, and then he showed up and made everything worse!”

“What...What was he showing you?”

Noodle paused, taking a deep breath. “The death of my new family.”

It made sense that her worst fear was losing the ones she loved again. She already lost the family that she was born to.

“And you,” Noodle continued.

2D would normally feel happy after finding out that she considered him one of the people she loved, even after only a few days of being friends, but the current situation caused him to not feel anything. He debated about whether or not he should tell her what happened to him. In the end, he gave in.

“Whales,” 2D whispered.

“What?” Noodle questioned, confused.

“My worst fear is whales. There was one in my basement the other day. That’s why I refuse to go back home right now.”

Noodle knew that he was sleeping in the park, but she didn’t question it when he asked her not to worry. She had even brought him a change of clothes every now and then, taking his back to her house to wash before returning them. Now, she felt bad for him.

“So...you saw ‘IT’ too?” Noodle made quotation marks with her fingers when she said “IT,” indicating that that was what she was going to start calling the clown.

2D nodded. They were both silent as they thought about what was going on. They wondered how many others had seen this clown and whether or not the police were after it. It also occurred to them that IT might be the thing responsible for the recent report of deaths going around.

“Maybe we should do some research,” Noodle suggested. “We could see if anything like this has happened before. If it has, maybe there was a way to capture whoever is doing this.”

2D agreed. It was time for them to go back to the library.

...

Two days went by. 2D and Noodle spent all of their time researching in the library. They looked for anything that could relate to the case: clowns, murders, fears, magic, supernatural, and a whole lot more. Noodle found that there were reports of clown sightings happening in the past, but they were considered to be hoaxes since nobody could actually prove that there was actually a clown. There was also a time gap between the mass of sightings. 2D then found that during the same time of the sightings, there were increased death rates in Derry. There were also large disasters that came with each period, excluding the last one for some reason. Calculating the math, they determined that this clown came back around every 27 years or so.

“And it’s been exactly 27 years since the last time this happened,” Noodle stated. She felt scared. She couldn’t understand how it was happening for so long. This clown couldn’t be immortal, could he? How were they supposed to stop it?

As they were researching that day, they heard a gasp from behind them. Both of them snapped their heads around to see who was standing behind them. It was a boy around the age of fourteen or fifteen. He was bigger than them, but still shorter than 2D.

“What are you guys doing?” The boy asked.

“Oh, you’re Russel!” 2D said. “You’re one of the high schoolers who isn’t mean to me. Actually, I don’t think we’ve ever talked before, so that’s probably why.”

Russel studied him for a second. “You’re...Stuart, right? The kid who lives two doors down from me whose parents are always gone?”

2D felt his face heat up in embarrassment. “Yeah...that’s me.”

“Hey, don’t feel bad about it, it’s not your fault.”

They smiled at each other. Russel understood that 2D was going through a rough time, and 2D was grateful that he saw that. Here 2D was, making a second friend.

“You can call him 2D!” Noodle told Russel. “I came up with it.”

“Alrighty, then, 2D it is!” Russel grinned. “Now, why don’t you explain to me what you’re researching. You’ve got a lot of books and papers spread out here.”

“Oh!” Noodle got excited, ready to let their new friend in on their project. “If we tell you, you’ve got to promise not to mention it to anyone.”

Russel pinky swore that he would not tell a soul with Noodle. She proceeded to go off on a rant about what they both saw, what their thoughts were on it, what they were researching, and what they found. Russel looked shocked when she was finished.

“Are you alright?” 2D asked. Russel didn’t say anything. Slowly, he pulled the bag that he was holding off of his shoulder and opened it up. Digging around, he eventually found what he was looking for. In his hand was a small journal.

“This will give you all of the answers,” he explained.

“What do you mean?” 2D asked.

“I mean that I’ve seen IT too, about a few weeks ago. I started researching immediately. This was buried underneath of a stack of papers in the office of this library. I snuck in there one day to search for anything that might tell me answers. It was like somebody didn’t want it to be found.”

2D took the journal from Russel and opened it up. He read it quietly out loud for a while so that Noodle could hear. Russel added his own input every now and then too.

According to the journal, the clown was, in fact, a supernatural being who could survive for many years. The author of the journal seemed to think that he and his friends had killed IT 27 years ago, but that was obviously not the case now. IT had somehow come back. There were some basic facts about IT too. IT called itself Pennywise the Clown, but the author had also found articles about a carnival from many decades before that Pennywise was a part of. The article had stated that Pennywise’s real name was Murdoc Niccals, but the author believed that to be fake too. IT was a being that had been there long before anything else was even thought of. It was plausible that IT didn’t have a proper name.

“What are we going to do?” Noodle asked.

“The end of the journal said that all of those who were a part of going up against Pennywise in the past ended up forgetting the entire thing. Well, they did until IT came back and they needed to fight IT again. I suspect that this was written during that time when they remembered, but I also think that they forgot again after it was over. We might forget in the future as well. However, it does say that there was one thing they did in order to beat IT. They refused to show fear, and that somehow drove IT away,” Russel tried to explain.

“So we just don’t fear IT whenever IT comes to us?” 2D questioned. “How are we supposed to do that? IT shows us our worst fear!”

“It’s time to face our fears. You don’t want to end up dead like the others, do you?”

Both 2D and Noodle shook their heads.

“Then we have to try our best to beat IT,” Russel said. “We’re the only ones who know about this now, so we’re the only ones who can stop it.”

They were all scared, that was for sure. They couldn’t have any fear, yet at that moment, they had more fear than ever before.

...

Murdoc could smell the fear as IT watched from the shadows. The three kids sitting at the table in the library were radiating fear. Each one of them had escaped him, but he would make sure that it didn’t happen again. He didn’t need a repeat of what happened last time.

IT was back, and IT was hungry.


End file.
